SchoolTube - Find Your Spirit

SchoolTube - Find Your Spirit

Challenge 4- Find your spirit

Students have been even more inspired and motivated to challenge each other to find ways to become active 60 mins a day, learn about nutrition, and organize activities during free time at school. 4 student ambassadors decided to challenge the entire school as well as other schools by submitting a video challenge on school tube. Fitness ambassador, Alex, challenges students on a school broadcast to get active and find fun activities to do. Recreation ambassadors, Amanda and Brenda, challenge girls at school to get active during the hour long lunch time on Fridays. They have coordinated activities, games, and tournaments on Fabulous Fridays. Music plays as girls are learning how to socialize while doing fitness activities. Boys naturally organize themselves to play games, while girls traditionally sit around and socialize. Fabulous Fridays is increasing participation each week and Brenda and Amanda are making weekly school announcements and posters to promote this activity. Nutrition ambassador, Karen, challenges students to create a portion wheel to make a visual connection about what serving sizes should be. Karen created a wheel as an example and works with others to create personal wheels for others.

Westchester students are learning how to create personal goals with fitness and nutrition. They continue to challenge each other and post challenges on the gym bulletin board.

Demeco Ryans visits WAIS

What an exciting day at WAIS !!!! Texan middle linebacker, DeMeco Ryans, came to WAIS to participate with students in football drills and relays and make smoothies for students to taste. DeMeco spoke with the students about the importance of exercising 60 minutes a day and making healthy food choices such as dairy, fruits and veggies, and whole grains. Students who participated with DeMeco were chosen in a drawing of those who have been current with daily recording on Play 60. Needless to say, this was the hottest drawing ever at WAIS. Once the students were drawn, they suddenly became "celebrities" on campus and the school buzzed about those lucky ones who were going to play with DeMeco.

My 5 student ambassadors, 2 fitness, 2 recreation, and 1 nutrition, were leaders on the court as they supervised the games and helped out with the activities. Nutrition ambassador, Karen Caballero, and Fitness ambassador, Alex Arazolla, helped make smoothies with DeMeco. The audience went wild when they began to mix the smoothies and DeMeco took a sample taste with the roar of the crowd shouting with excitement as he declared the smoothies very tasty. The other 3 ambassadors helped serve samples to the audience as DeMeco did and question and answer segment with the audience.

DeMeco made it a point to look at each student as they asked their question and had a genuine interest in each of these students. I then asked a student to walk out to the floor with me and handed him the mic to ask DeMeco his question. Charles is a football player who wants play on the college level and DeMeco is his favorite player who he holds in high esteem. Charles was so nervous and choked as he stood next to DeMeco. DeMeco moved closer to Charles as if they were the only 2 people in the gym. Charles asked him for advise about how to play on the next level and DeMeco began to talk to him as a mentor. After the response, Charles was smiling ear to ear and everyone could see how touched Charles was at having this special opportunity to talk 1-1 with DeMeco. After a hand shake, the entire gym, stood on their feet and applauded the 2 of them. Knowing that Charles relates to Michael Oar as they have similar backgrounds, I had chills. Charles was so overcome and DeMeco asked him if he wanted to take a picture with him. Charles couldn't even respond, but I walked up to him and said, smile for the camera. At the conclusion of the event, Charles came to me and told me that this was the best day in his entire life and couldn't imagine ever having a better one.

I enjoyed the event for my students and school, but I will admit that the segment with Charles and DeMeco meant more to me than anything else we did this day. DeMeco's visit to our school meant so much to our students. He posed for pictures, gave autographs, and looked at each student in the eye and smiled as they spoke with him. I was most impressed with his personal touch and genuine enthusiasm for speaking about Play 60.

I can't even began to thank Play 60/Dairy Max for awarding us this visit from DeMeco. He was an inspiration to my students, the school body, and the other classroom teachers that attended the event. THANK YOU SO MUCH PLAY 60/DAIRY MAX for this opportunity !!!

Students recording PALA and daily activities

Students in my high school classes this semester have been signing up with Play 60. They enter their exercise and food intake each week and work on their rewards. Currently, students are participating w/ the PALA challenge and have sets goals to encourage everyone so that we are 100% for the 6 weeks challenge. Mini laptops are set up on tables, as seen here, which is in a hallway off the gym floor. They rotate using the laptops to record their updates during class.

FOX broadcast

What an exciting Day !!!!!

As winners of the Dairy Max recipe contest, WAIS was asked to send a student representative to film a segment on FOX. Chef Jon Ashton and student nutrition ambassador Karen Caballero filmed a 5-7 min segment on tv talking about the Play 60 program and how important it is for kids to eat veggies, fruits, whole grains, and milk as part of their daily food intake. Chef Jon and Karen prepared the winning Touchdown Texan Dip and shared how the class came up with the recipe. Part of the discussion also included being active 60 minutes a day. Sponsored by Dairy Max, the contest asked for students to create a team meal with an original recipe to enter. WAIS students in one of my classes, created this dip and shared it with other school students and staff.

What an experience for Karen as she is taking a leadership role with the Play 60 program. She is heading up the program piece to incorporate how high school students at WAIS can become aware of the importance of eating healthy and making healthy choices to lead to living a healthy lifestyle. Karen wants to be a chef one day and takes classes at the district's culinary program so this is fitting that she is our school ambassador. Karen has been researching and surveying students about the foods they like and what they are eating. Currently, she is creating a committee to help her organize and head up cooking lessons that we will teach in class. Meeting Chef Jon was a highlight for her and she is even more excited to get to work.

"Drill" stations

Students participating in fitness "Drill" stations. Once a week, students rotate through a variety of different fitness stations such as core strength, cardio, and muscle strength. As part of their fitness plan, students learn about different options to participate in and are exposed to a variety of different options to reach their personal goals.

Class challenges

I have been taking notes and photos of the students in class as they have set personal goals for both fitness and healthy food choices. We have been using Fuel Up in our classes as we align activities with the curriculum.

I teach 6 high school classes of Health FItness that include Outdoor Education, Aerobics, Team Sports 1-3, and an athletic class for students who have completed all HF requirements but want to remain active and take more HF classes. Each of the classes have different TEKS, but the core of all classes focus on nutrition and fitness goals.

Outdoor Ed classes include lessons and activities such as conditioning, orienteering, 1st Aid, cooking, etc.

My aerobics class is a course that I use FITTGRAM scores, BMI's, and TAKS scores to target students for intervention. I use a variety of technology tools to motivate and engage students which has been very successful. I also focus on personal fitness goals for each student and they create a personal fitness program that includes food choices. Students chart data during the semester and then create personal programs. Using technology, students create videos, podcasts, and personal listening exercise programs to listen to on their i-pods. I teach lessons in nutrition and have students research food choices while focusing on their personal food pyramid recommendations. We prepare meals and snacks as part of our class. The grant we received this fall helps me to fund this class.

Team Sports classes focus on core strength, muscular strength, card endurance and flexibility.

Athletic class is a class where students self monitor themselves as they play competitive games and activities.

With all of my classes, I like to provide 1 day a week to focus on fitness elements through stations. From stability balls to drill stations, students rotate around the gym moving through each station. Each week I change the equipment and activities to keep it fresh.

Each week, I remind students to input their information for Play 60 and provide several mini laptops for them to pass around during the class time. Students keep track of their daily physical activities and food intake which keeps them aware of their healthy habits. Part of the grant money we received from Dairy Max helps me to purchase incentive rewards each month.